ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

VOLUME 51, ISSUE 3 (Special Issue)

Guest Editors: Christian Pentzold, Anne Kaun, Stine Lomborg & Sille Obelitz Søe

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/comm/51/3/html

EDITORIAL

Publicly Available: Datafied welfare for human flourishing: People-centered perspectives on automation and communication in Europe – Special issue introduction

Christian Pentzold, Anne Kaun, Stine Lomborg, Sille Obelitz Søe

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2026-0189/html

ARTICLES

Gaming the system or exercising agency? Algorithmic risk, welfare automation, and the paradox of fairness

Freyja Van Den Boom

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2025-0110/html

Invisible infrastructures, visible breakdowns: Rethinking smart pedestrian crossings through maintenance and everyday use

Maris Männiste

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2025-0121/html

Open Access: Algorithmic welfare. Disaggregating semi-automated fraud detection by spotlighting human judgment in organizational practices

Astrid Mager, Doris Allhutter

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2025-0111/html

Open Access: Listening to bureaucratic noise: (Auto-)ethnographic reflections on legal advice encounters in the Dutch data welfare state

Deniz Rana Kuseyri

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2025-0108/html

When “green” means more data: Climate data contradictions in digital waste governance

Celina Strzelecka

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2025-0119/html

BOOK REVIEWS

Open Access: Kaun, A., & Masso, A. (2025). The data welfare state. Sage Publications, 136 pp.

Charlotte Högberg

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2026-0003/html

Open Access: Masiero, S. (2024). Unfair ID. Sage, 218 pp.

Yanti Sastrawan

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2026-0028/html

Madianou, M. (2024). Technocolonialism: When technology for good is harmful. Polity Press, 248 pp.

Miriana Cascone

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2026-0060/html

COMMUNICATIONS

Editors: Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz-Lietz & Leen d’Haenens

Associate Editors: Denisa Hejlová, Philippe J. Maarek, Hillel Nossek, Christian Pentzold, Cristina Ponte, Christian Ruggiero, Brigitte Sebbah

Book Review Editors: Olivier Driessens, Stijn Joye, Rebecca Venema

Editorial Management: Viviane Harkort

For questions please contact the editorial management: journal.commun@degruyterbrill.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/communications-journal/

May 4-5, 2026

Jönköping University, Sweden

Deadline: December 7, 2026

Organisers: Annette Hill (MKV, Jönköping University) and Hario Priambodho (MKV, Lund University)

Secrets and lies. The meanings of secrets in media, culture and society are multifold. There are mysteries, the things we keep hidden from knowledge or view, such as crime podcasts or the classic whodunnit genre of television and film. It’s an age of conspiratorial thinking and opaque and clandestine activities in media and democracy are of undeniable concern, especially in light of the pressure points on media and democracy. Trade secrets protect media and communication companies, from the blackboxing of algorithmic machinery, to the strict prohibition of disclosure about labour conditions. Stealthy media can include spycraft, top secret documents and technologies, or covert practices for business, political and elite actors and organisations.

Secrets also offer spaces for manoeuvre. The move to protect anonymity of journalistic sources is crucial in fights for freedom of expression. In the opposite direction, to uncover secrets and promulgate a right to know is a critical move in strengthening media transparency and trust. Freedom of information requests are an essential means for the public to hold power to account. And yet, demands for transparency can themselves be political, selective and productive of new forms of power or opacity.

Secrets are linked with obtaining knowledge, such as discernment of machine generated content, developing tactics against media secrecy and adapting practices in the face of oppression. There are secret rituals and community routines and practices that are part of fan cultures, subcultures, or esoteric societies. And secrets are a part of everyday life, linked with performance of identities and intrigue within social relations.

This international symposium unlocks the meanings of media secrets and asks what’s mysterious, covert or hidden in media? The combination of panels, keynotes, and roundtable discussions will address critical perspectives, theoretical development, and methodological reflections on how we can better understand what are often taken for granted both with the media and through the media. Key questions include: What is the role of media and culture in keeping and revealing secrets in society? How may we deepen understanding of social phenomenon by digging beneath the surface of media and culture?

We invite researchers to explore and uncover media secrets through the following possible pathways:

• Genre, representations, or hidden meanings in pop culture, film, and television
  
• Media gatekeeping practices that sequester the availability of information or content
  
• Secret acts of resistance or activism in or through the media
  
• Keeping certain representations hidden or hiding the will of the people
  
• The obfuscation of scientific facts and truths
  
• Secret engagements and experiences of media and cultural events
  
• Defining and problematizing privacy and what should be kept secret
  
• Blackboxed algorithmic systems and platform infrastructures
  
• Media practices, representations, or societal significance of secret societies, organizations, or groups
  
• Selective narratives in journalistic practices
  
• Discreet business or organizational media and communication practices
  

International invited speakers include Julia Brockley (Intellect Press), Göran Bolin (Södertörn University, Sweden), Simon Dawes (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France), Natalie Foster (Routledge), Christine Geraghty (Glasgow University), Joke Hermes (InHolland University, the Netherlands), Annette Hill (Jönköping University, Sweden), Dylan Mulvin (LSE, UK), Hario Priambodho (Lund University, Sweden), and Robert Willim (Lund University, Sweden).

Please submit an abstract of 300 words in English by December 7th 2026 to Hario Priambodho (hario.priambodho@iko.lu.se). For further information please consult our website https://ju.se/mediasecretsinternationalsymposium

There is a registration fee of 2950 SEK. The fee covers conference catering and an evening meal on day one of the event.

June 3, 2027

Glasgow, Scotland

Deadline: December 15, 2026

The Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC) is pleased to announce its second ICA pre-conference, to be held on 3 June 2027 in Glasgow, Scotland, on the theme of “AI and children’s rights” in association with two ICA divisions, Children, Adolescents, and Media and Communication Law and Policy.  

This pre-conference brings together scholars and practitioners to explore how research on children and AI can inform policy, regulation and design, and how diverse perspectives from around the world can inform and shape international debates. The event will be highly interactive and engaging, structured around themed discussions, with an inspiring keynote to start and a forward-looking plenary discussion to close.  

Researchers around the world are exploring children’s relation to AI and the impacts of an AI-embedded world on their lives, their life chances and their rights. With research grounded in multiple theories, from different disciplinary perspectives, and deploying a range of methods, this is a good time to take stock of what we know, and what we are doing, and to debate which approaches are promising and insightful, and why. 

We welcome original research studies addressing the theme of AI and children’s rights from all disciplines, employing empirical methods, relevant theory, and contributing to children’s rights in the digital environment. We invite extended abstracts of up to 1500 words (excluding references and tables). Each abstract must include the following subheadings: research questions, theoretical framework, empirical method, key findings and a description of how the work relates to children’s rights. Six keywords should be identified. 

Submission form: https://forms.gle/ZzkSSsPB1SdWBuSq8  

Submission deadline: 23:59 GMT on 15 December 2026 

For more information visit the DFC page or email info@dfc-centre.net 

University of Westminster, London 

The University of Westminster’s Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) is pleased to announce this year’s Quintin Hogg Trust (QHT) PhD Studentships for UK and International applicants to commence in the 2027/28 academic year. 

Full information about the studentships, entry requirements and the application procedure can be found here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/studentships/quintin-hogg-trust-qht-studentships-2027-28

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, select the School of Media and Communication and include the title of the studentship, The Quintin Hogg Trust Studentship, in your application form.  

Application deadline: 5 February 2027.

Interviews: week commencing 8 March 2027.

ABOUT CAMRI

The Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) in the School of Media and Communication is a world-leading centre in the study of media and communication, renowned for its critical and international research, which has consistently been ranked highly according to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the QS World University Rankings. In REF 2021 83% of CAMRI's overall research was judged to be ‘world-leading’ and ‘internationally excellent’. 

CAMRI welcomes applications which explore the political, economic, social and cultural significance of the media across the globe. CAMRI research is focused on four key themes: Media Policy and the Public Interest; Global Media, Decolonisation and Mobilities; Communication, Platforms and Infrastructures; Media Industries and Creative Labour. 

CONTACTS

To seek guidance and be connected with prospective supervisors, please include both of the following contacts as recipients in the same email:

Dr Alessandro D’Arma, School PhD Co-ordinator

Email: a.darma@westminster.ac.uk

Dr Ed Bracho-Polanco, School DRDP Coordinator

Email: e.brachopolanco@westminster.ac.uk

Alternatively, you may directly approach a prospective supervisor. For more information, visit the CAMI website to explore our core research themes and the expertise of our academic staff.

Link: https://www.camri.ac.uk

 Deadline: November 1, 2026

Edited by Lewis Rarm (Victoria University of Wellington) and Federico Selvini (IULM University)

Since the early 2000s, wearable cameras have become increasingly prominent consumer recording technologies. Their development and commercial rise—driven in particular by GoPro, founded by Nick Woodman in 2002—were initially associated with extreme and action sports. These devices enabled athletes to record their own performances from a first-person perspective, even in remote and often inaccessible environments, without the assistance of a professional camera crew.

To meet these demands, wearable cameras were designed with a distinctive set of technical features: their reduced size and weight allow them to be mounted directly on the user’s body; their construction makes them resistant to impacts and adverse weather conditions; their high degree of automation minimises the need for continuous manual operation; and their fixed-focus, wide-angle lenses capture an extensive field of view.

Although they originated within a recreational context, the use of wearable cameras soon expanded beyond the boundaries of leisure and action-sports culture. They are now employed across a wide range of practices: soldiers and combatants use them to record their experiences in theatres of war; terrorist organisations and extremist actors incorporate the resulting footage into propaganda materials; and police forces have adopted body-worn cameras as evidentiary and accountability tools intended to document potentially controversial encounters.

Across contexts of armed conflict, terrorism, and policing, the technical and visual affordances of these devices have proved particularly effective in documenting violence through an embodied gaze. Wearable camera footage has consequently become central to the ways in which violence and potentially violent encounters are recorded, framed, circulated, authenticated, and contested. 

Drawing on questions of witnessing, testimony, and violence, Body-Worn Cameras and the Visual Politics of Violence: Embodied Witnessing eschews the idea that wearable cameras are neutral recording instruments and instead examines how they constitute a specific form of mediation. The footage they produce occupies an inherently ambiguous position: it may document acts of conflict and harm, generate forms of evidence and testimony, and contribute to public memory, but it may also reproduce and recirculate those acts, position viewers within the visual perspective of those who carry them out, or be mobilised for propagandistic, operational, and institutional purposes. Why are these technologies so frequently employed in such contexts? What forms of witnessing do they produce? How do they reshape the positions of witness, victim, perpetrator, and spectator?

Over the past fifteen years, a growing number of studies have addressed wearable cameras. Much of this scholarship, however, remains fragmented or centred on individual case studies. A more substantial body of research has developed around police body-worn cameras, but it has generally focused on issues related to privacy or on their legal, judicial, and operational effectiveness. Far less attention has been paid to the broader cultural and political implications of producing images through a camera physically attached to the body. Such images possess distinctive aesthetic, perceptual, and sensory characteristics that derive not only from their contexts of use but also from the technical and functional properties of the recording devices themselves.

The volume seeks to address this gap by bringing into dialogue scholars working across media studies and visual culture studies. It approaches wearable cameras as “machines of vision,” combining attention to media technologies, practices, and circulation with analyses of visuality, aesthetics, spectatorship, and representation. In doing so, it aims to develop critical perspectives on how wearable camera footage mediates violent events and experiences and reshapes established notions of witnessing and testimony. 

The volume will be organised into three sections. Prospective contributors are invited to submit proposals addressing one of the following areas:

Wearable Cameras in Conflict and Political Violence

This section examines images produced by wearable cameras in contexts of armed conflict and political violence. It traces the growing adoption of these devices during the Global War on Terror and their widespread presence in contemporary conventional and asymmetric warfare, terrorist attacks, and extremist violence. It considers the recording of armed conflict and political violence by direct participants to be a relatively recent yet increasingly established media practice, focusing on the visual forms generated by the encounter between the recording body, the technical apparatus, and the spatial, political, and symbolic terrain in which violence takes place. Contributions may address footage produced by a range of state and non-state actors, its aesthetic and technological characteristics, and the ways in which it constructs and circulates forms of vision, testimony, evidence, propaganda, memory, and spectatorship.

Police Body-Worn Cameras and Visual Power

This section examines the images produced by police body-worn cameras and the contested visual cultures through which police encounters are made visible and such images acquire meaning and authority. It situates these images within a longer history of struggles over the visibility of policing, including recordings made by bystanders, citizens, and activists, while examining how the use of body-worn cameras reconfigures who produces such images, who controls their circulation, and how they come to function as evidence. Contributions may examine how the embodied and seemingly immediate perspective of body-worn cameras contributes to the construction of police footage as an objective record, and how institutional control over its production, selection, interpretation, and circulation shapes what becomes visible, intelligible, and contestable. The section welcomes analyses of the aesthetic and technological characteristics of these images; their relationship to surveillance, state violence, racialised policing, and institutional power; and their use across legal, journalistic, documentary, and digital media contexts.

Embodiment and Witnessing: Pleasure and Resistance

This section considers the implications, effects, and affects of body-worn camera footage, which often depicts spectacular violence while eliciting both joy and dread in audiences. Contributions may examine the affective excesses of these images and the conditions under which footage of violent scenes provokes voyeuristic pleasure. The section also asks what might be salvaged from the violent entanglements within which body-worn cameras are deployed and their footage is produced and circulated. Can the pleasure generated by these images be rescued or redirected? Can body-worn camera footage offer possibilities for resistance or a line of escape from the regimes of power within which it is produced and circulated? Submissions may address the affective capacities of body-worn camera images, their mobilisation as forms of critique or resistance, or the relationship between these two dimensions.

Submission Guidelines

Prospective contributors are invited to submit an abstract of 300-500 words, accompanied by a short biographical note of approximately 100 words and 3-5 keywords, by Sunday, 1 November 2026, via this form: https://forms.gle/nM6afJWMcqgpyM3f6

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by Thursday, 10 December 2026.

Authors whose proposals are accepted will be required to submit their full chapters by Wednesday, 30 June 2027.

Chapters should be between 7,000 and 8,000 words in length, including notes and bibliography, and may include a maximum of three images. Authors are responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions and reproduction rights for any copyrighted or third-party material included in their chapters. 

All chapters will be subject to double-blind peer review. 

The volume will be published in English in 2028 by Routledge as part of the Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies series.

For any enquiries, please contact lewis.rarm@vuw.ac.nz and federico.selvini@iulm.it

Nete Nørgaard Kristensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

2026, Routledge

Cultural Journalism in the Digital Age provides the first international, book-length introduction to Western cultural journalism, a distinct type of professional journalism that has expanded and diversified significantly, particularly from the mid-20th century into the first decades of the 21st century. The book shows how cultural journalism, in response to cultural democratization, globalization, and digitalization, engages with a wide spectrum of issues – from culture understood narrowly as arts and popular culture to broader notions encompassing norms, values, and traditions. Drawing on media theoretical, historical, and sociological perspectives, as well as insights from cultural criticism and cultural sociology, the book addresses key questions, such as what characterizes cultural journalism as a research field? What are its democratic roles? What counts as “culture” in cultural journalism? What constitutes its journalistic form? And who are the professionals producing it?

December 2-5, 2026

Vienna, Austria

Deadline: October 26, 2026

SWS Vienna ART 2026 – When Science Meets Art, taking place 2–5 December 2026 at Schönbrunn Palace, 1130 Vienna, Austria, os organised by SWS Scholarly Society / Secretariat Bureau.

The interdisciplinary conference covers arts, social sciences and humanities. For readers of ECREA, the media-relevant directions include Media, Communications and Misinformation in the Digital Age (production, dissemination and impact of information); AI and Society (ethical, social and economic impacts); and Digital Humanities (digital archives, computational analysis, interactive media). Scope details are at https://sgemvienna.org/social-sciences.php and https://sgemvienna.org/art-humanities.php.

Public deadlines:

• abstracts 26 October 2026;
  
• panel/workshop proposals 9 November 2026;
  
• full paper and early-bird 16 November 2026;
  
• poster 23 November 2026.
  

Official site: https://sgemvienna.org/; dates and programme: https://sgemvienna.org/deadlines-programme.php.

Participation is paid according to the organiser's fees; we request an ordinary editorial conference listing without a paid advertising commitment. We would be grateful for the editorial team's judgement on fit.

December 11, 2026

Deadline: November 23, 2026

On December 11, 2026, we're hosting our first ONLINE Junior (and baby) Scholars Work-in-Progress Session, inviting doctoral researchers and early-career scholars to discuss research that's still taking shape. Each participant will have 5 minutes to introduce their work and explain what they'd like help thinking through, followed by 20-25 minutes of generous, constructive group discussion with CCSN members across career stages. We'll share the event schedule and timing as we get closer to the date.

Expression of interest deadline: November 23, 2026, to ContentCreatorScholarsNetwork@gmail.com, including:

- your name and affiliation

- a brief project description (+ its current stage), and

- one or two questions on which you'd particularly appreciate feedback.

THE CCSN BLOG

Our blog has two new pieces by truly brilliant scholars exploring VERY different corners of creator and platform studies:

“From Co-option to Care: Reimagining Justice Through Platforms” by Nora Suren. Drawing on the Platforms, Algorithms, and Social Justice workshop at MIT, Nora explores what justice means for creators navigating platform power, from corporate co-option and cultural misrecognition to censorship, algorithmic suppression, and struggles for visibility.

Read Nora's piece - https://www.ccsn.site/from-co-option-to-care-reimagining-justice-through-platforms

“What Labubu Can Tell Us About TikTok's AI Slop Economy” by Billie Wilcox and Jiaru Tang. What can one strange little creature tell us about the creator economy? Billie and Jiaru follow Labubu across TikTok to explore how human and AI-driven creator cultures coexist, compete, and generate value. The piece also offers a great methodological invitation for online feeds - follow the 'cultural object'!

Read the Labubu piece - https://www.ccsn.site/labubu-a-tale-of-two-creator-cultures

And we'd love more contributions! So if you're working through an emerging concept, methodological question, or curious corner of internet culture, we'd love to hear your ideas for a short CCSN blog post. Just reach out to ContentCreatorScholarsNetwork@gmail.com with a brief pitch.

Here are the CCSN spaces. Would love to have you join and stay in the loop.

- Join our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eMnPfMtT (please also consider submitting your work \ projects \ anything you have creators-related to be featured in the newsletter every month!)

- Come to our Discord: https://lnkd.in/e4knBbmg

- Check out our reading list and syllabi: https://lnkd.in/eDDsg-Eu

- Follow us on Insta @weareccsn  

Deadline: December 1, 2026

We invite contributions to a forthcoming anthology from Intellect Books. Climate in the Classroom: Reimagining Communication, Media and Journalism Pedagogy will be the first book to propose practical and theoretically rich ways for communication and media instructors to teach about climate and environment. 

While climate change affects us all, teaching which addresses it remains only sparsely scattered through the media, journalism, and communications curricula. In contrast to the thorough embedding of AI and digital media into communications teaching, climate change and the environment remains a separate silo, not a priority area in students' education. Yet, as students encounter climate change and the environmental impacts of communications infrastructure like data centres in their daily lives, they increasingly call on educators to address it (Thew et al 2021; SOS/NUS, n.d.).  

Environmentally engaged media studies calls for a radical reorientation of our curricula (Keilbach & Pabiś-Orzeszyna, 2021). This anthology will provide an accessible guide for instructors who want to fill this gap but might feel unqualified, or who already teach environment and media and are seeking inspiration and community. The book will present commissioned essays from experts around the world who are pioneering the teaching of climate change in the media, journalism, and communications fields. 

We suggest several avenues for this below: 

• Encouraging student interest, empowerment, and engagement 
  
• Teaching the next generation of climate communicators
  
• Challenging the illusion of a “clean” or dematerialised media industry, including in the classroom
  
• Foregrounding climate change as a social fact, not just a scientific one
  
• Actively confronting climate denial, greenwashing, and silencing
  
• Approaching institutionalized resistance to climate teaching
  
• Elevating the expertise and leadership of those who are often sidelined from mainstream climate discourse - including students themselves
  
• Decolonizing climate and environmental pedagogy in media and communication
  
• Practice-based reflections
  
• Theoretical reflections
  
• The place of emotions such as hope, fear, anxiety, and grief in the classroom
  
• Collaborations between researchers and practitioners and other innovative formats

We welcome contributions that would contribute to any of the planned sections below, but please contact us if you wish to address a different topic related to the book’s theme.

• Teaching mediation of the environment
  
• Teaching climate change journalism
  
• Classroom innovation: building determination and agency
  
• Embedding critique of the media industry’s environmental impact
  
• Environmental justice in the curriculum
  
• Teaching through environmental communication practice
  
• Building institutional competence: Navigating obstacles to climate change teaching

If you teach and innovate in this area, please contribute to this book. Please send an abstract of no more than 400 words to Rosalind Donald (rdonald@american.edu) and Chris Paterson (cpaterson@leeds.ac.uk) by December 1 2026. We will notify commissioned authors by January 14, 2027. First drafts of chapters (provisionally 5,000-6,000 words) will be due by March 31, 2027. If your contribution is reliant on the collection of new data, please state how far along you are with that process.

University of Fribourg, Switzerland

The Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM) at the University of Fribourg invites applications for a five-year fixed-term position (80%) as Senior Research and Teaching Assistant (Maître-assistant-e ; Postdoc) in Communication and Media Studies and/or Strategic Communication.

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary research environment connecting communication and media studies, economics, and strategic organizational communication.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Teach four hours per week during the teaching semester, primarily in the French-language Bachelor's programme in Communication Studies and, if required, the Master's programme in Business Communication.

Supervise Bachelor's and Master's theses and seminar papers.

Develop high-quality research projects, publish research findings, and pursue external research funding.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Applicants should hold an excellent PhD in communication or a closely related social science discipline, with a clear research focus on communication phenomena, media and/or strategic organizational communication.

Relevant research areas include journalism, media uses and effects, political communication, and strategic organizational communication. Interdisciplinary profiles are welcome.

Applicants should demonstrate strong expertise in empirical social science research methods. Both qualitative and quantitative research profiles are welcome; equivalent expertise in both is not required. However, basic knowledge of quantitative methods is expected for teaching purposes.

Excellent command of French and very good command of English are required. Knowledge of German and international research experience are additional assets.

POSITION DETAILS

Employment: 80%, five-year fixed-term contract

Location: Fribourg, Switzerland

Starting date: 1 January 2027 or by agreement

Application deadline: 15 November 2026

APPLICATION DOCUMENTS

Applicants should submit a motivation letter outlining their research interests and potential projects, a CV with two academic referees, a publication list, a 1–2-page PhD thesis summary, available teaching evaluations, and any other relevant certificates.

FULL JOB ADVERTISEMENT AND APPLICATION

https://jobs.fr.ch/job/Fribourg%2C-CH-Ma%C3%AEtre-assistant-e-en-sciences-de-la-communication-%26-des-m%C3%A9dias-et-communication-strat%C3%A9gique-Sari/1374206657/